Orb of Ash
by Dragonheart77
Summary: (A fanfic-of-a-fanfic, based on "Council of the Four Seasons" by wolfchic; permission given by original author to write. Details in A/N.) The 34th host of Winter may be blind, but she Sees sharper than any other... and when she dreams of a story and drags her Sister to write it, it brings both of them more questions than answers. Rated T because I'm paranoid


**Hey, guys! So, this is a bit of an odd one. It's kind of strange in that it's a fanfiction of a fanfiction. I don't know how much sense that makes, but there you go. I'll try to explain.**

 **Basically, long story short, I read this amazifying fanfiction called _Council of the Four Seasons_ by wolfchic011. By the time I had finished, Carella was tugging at the Council-verse, trying to play with it more, especially after those first couple of bonus chapters. I shot wolfchic a PM, and she gave me the go-ahead to write this. With her as my unofficial beta, we tweaked the story and this was written. And now it's time to publish! The odds are good that most of you have come from _Council_ , but for those of you who haven't, I highly suggest reading it. (I also suggest not reading this until you're finished, or it won't make much sense.)**

 **I will also say this, as a little teaser: as we were editing this together, wolfchic mentioned that she might well be using some of the ideas from this in the sequel when it comes... and it _is_ coming, as the eagle-eyes among you might have noticed from her latest bonus chapter.**

 **Welcome to another bonus story, more or less hot off the press. {That rhymed.} ...shush. {Just saying.}**

 **Word Count: 2,351**

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Asa stirred as light fell over her face. _Wake,_ the voice told her. _Wake, Asa. Our Sister needs you._

"Asa?" a thin voice queried, confirming it.

The girl shook off her sleepiness immediately at the sound of fear in her Sister's voice. "Lydia?" she asked, scarlet eyes almost glowing in the faint light from the moon falling through the open doorway. The temple was dark, and it was nearly new moon. She floundered in the bed, making her way to an almost upright position. "Is everything okay?"

Lydia shook her head, pulling at her pale hair with restless hands. "Dreams... It's Isen. I See something... it needs to be written, now."

Asa almost protested. It was the middle of the night, and she was tired. But Lydia had come to Asa's room to wake her, and the Winter host didn't sound impatient, or even mildly disturbed like she usually did when she had Seen something. She sounded _scared._ Really, really scared. It wasn't something the youngest host was used to hearing in the voice of the older Sister's voice. So she hurried to untangle herself from her sheets and slid out of the bed, scurrying across the room to take Lydia's hand in hers. The fingers that gripped Asa's tightly were frigid, but the Summer host did not complain. The two made their way quickly down the halls of the temple, a faint glow emanating from Asa's free hand for her own sake - Lydia did not need it. The Winter host's blindness mimicked Isen's, but it had not been caused by the Winter spirit's presence. However, it did make the things she Saw that much stronger than most Winter hosts - and it meant she needed a Scribe as much as Isen had needed Branna before the time of the hosts.

Asa clambered up onto the shelf and pulled down a scroll she knew to have plenty of space on it. She hurriedly scratched out the formal beginning that over half the entries she had written bore, the one she could write legibly in her sleep, the one she had been writing since she was nine years old.

 _From the writings of Asa, 34th host of the fire goddess Branna, on behalf of Lydia, 34th host of the ice goddess Isen._

She paused, knowing that Lydia would hear the end of her quill's movement and know to begin. After the count of four seconds, the Winter host began her tale.

 _When the Great Tree was destroyed, when Død's fell blade cut deep into the heartwood and sapped away the Tree's life force, it was a terrible day for all. Even Død herself felt the loss, even Death knew that such a life should never have been extinguished. So she bowed to the Mother's command, did not protest, did not fight her banishment, did not argue against her terrible Sword's destruction. She was bitter, angry, but guilt ruled in her heart as well. And when her Sisters followed her to the world below, she found some measure of comfort in their presence, especially Isen, the one she could not harm._

 _The dust from the Great Tree, all that remained of the connector of worlds, scattered across every realm, falling upon the worlds and settling into the weaving of their existence. But it did not fall evenly - in some places, it was as thin as a skein of frost on water, in others, thick enough to leave footprints in the first day it fell. And in one corner of the world of men, it gathered, the dust of the connector of worlds piling up so high that the Earth could not contain it. Gray and pale as ash, it stirred, slowly, slowly coalescing, drawing itself together, the last of the magic within it striving to achieve a solid form again. And, after many decades, centuries, it finally succeeded, creating an Orb to rival Isen's Mirror._

 _It was not perfect. It was not flawless. It was not alive. And it was poisoned by Death's Sword. But it existed, and it continued to exist, continued to struggle to purge itself of the venom of Død's cursed blade. It could not do it alone. But it knew one was coming who could save it from its existence of struggle.  
_

Lydia hesitated, and Branna stirred. _Isen?_ she asked, despite the fact that she knew the Winter spirit could not hear her, and Asa could hear in her tone the concern for her love. But Isen-Lydia went on.

 _Far away, in a kingdom at the center of the world, there lived an unhappy prince. He wanted nothing more than to roam the world, seeing all that he could, but being the only heir to the throne of his kingdom, he could not wander as he wished. He escaped his castle whenever he could get away, fleeing to the forest, but did not dare go far, until one night he received a dream which woke him at midnight shivering. In the dream, a woman-creature of bark and stone and glowing eyes appeared to him and spoke, telling him of the destruction of the Great Tree and of the spirits falling to earth, banished for one Sister's crime. She told him of the ashes of the Tree, of the Orb that had been created in one corner of the earth. She told him he was to go there, to find the Orb, to find a way to save it from D_ _ød's curse. And the power he would be granted in return would be greater than he could imagine.  
_

 _The prince was all too happy to take up the chance to leave his kingdom - and what better reason than a quest such as this? And so the foolish prince left in the night, leaving no trace, taking his faithful steed and galloping away with all speed.  
_

 _For many months, he searched the far reaches of the earth, striving to find the Orb. Along the way, he made many friends and more than a few enemies, but he never allowed either one to follow him for long. But there was one who persisted, a girl of sixteen years whose eyes were the gray of dust and whose hands never left the confines of her gloves, even when she slept. The girl always seemed to be looking over her shoulder, but never explained why. She would not enter a garden, and would not touch a rose, as though through the nearness_ _someone might notice her or catch up to her, like a shadow forever chasing her through the world. But slowly, over many months, the prince realized he loved the girl, and the girl came to finally know what love felt like, even though she never touched her prince skin to skin.  
_

 _And after many months, as the crocuses were beginning to bloom, the prince and the girl found what they were looking for._

 _The Orb was deep brown-black, but it was mottled and blotched with gray, nearly the size of the prince's head. When he reached down to touch it, his hand stopped a few inches away, fingers prickling. He did not know what power the Orb contained, but he could sense that it was very dangerous. He knew better than to touch it instinctively, and so instead pulled off his jacket and used that to touch it._

 _As he pushed at it, it rolled over, revealing a crack, and something that made both prince and girl draw in a sharp gasp. A splinter of something that looked like steel but radiated dark energy had pierced the Orb, become trapped as the object formed, poisoning the last remnant of the Great Tree even as the Orb had protected it from being shattered any smaller by the Mother. A splinter of star-steel, forged in the heart of a volcano, quenched in the tears of Lonely and the blood of Death, separated from its siblings by the Mother's will. The prince reeled back, suddenly terrified by the power he felt from the Orb, from the piece of the Sword._

 _The dust-gray eyes of the girl, however, glowed. She knew not what the Orb did, but she sensed the power of the star-steel, felt it call to her. And she reached out before her prince could stop her and plucked the splinter of the Sword from the crack in the Orb._

 _Even she gasped with the power released from the fissure as the Orb purged itself of the last of Death. The grass around the Orb withered, the nearest trees groaned as their leaves browned, the prince's faithful steed gasped and fell to the earth as the Orb cleared of gray and turned solid black-brown. The girl was guarded from the rush of fast-dissipating Breath by the voice in her head._

 _Her prince was not so lucky._

 _The girl let out a wail as she realized what she had done. She threw aside the shard of the Sword and her gloved hands flew across her prince's agonizingly still chest, to his throat, frantically praying to find a pulse, even though she knew already that it was too late. She flung herself across the body of her beloved, weeping for a life stolen she had wished so desperately to keep. For the first time, Kaya_ _pulled the glove away from one hand, finally able to touch her lover skin to skin... in death, and only in death, for she was Death, and there was no escape for her._

 _Halfway across the world, a woman named Ava stumbled and gasped as her Sister's pain swept through her. She cried out for her Guardian, and he came to her, and the two were swept away in a flurry of pollen. They found, at last, the Autumn host, crying over the corpse of her love. The Spring host, finally able to find her Sister through her pain, could not bring herself to scold her distraught Sister for running away. Instead, she tried to heal the damage done by Kaya's thoughtless actions.  
_

 _But not even Life itself could awaken one touched by the Breath, however fleeting the touch may have been._

 _It was the first in a long line of heartbreaks, the beginning of a bitterness that would boil and seethe until thousands of years and hundreds of hosts later, until all would come to a close in the beginning of a new era, the dawning of a new age, built on a foundation of lies and guilt, pain and loss, beauty and passion, secrets and dangers._

 _As for the Orb, it would not let Death touch it again, not even through human skin, not even through gloves. When Kaya tried, it threw her back into her Guardian's arms, the shock nearly enough to send her into a death-sleep._

Lydia stopped speaking abruptly. Asa shivered, saw her Sister trembling all over, and reached out to comfort her. Steam rose from where her hand touched Lydia's, and she knew by the ice crawling over the chair and the floor and the table - Asa moved the scroll quickly so as not to damage it by mistake, though they should have been protected from the goddesses' magic - that the Winter host was deeply disturbed and very uncertain. "A prophecy?" she asked.

Lydia-Isen shook her head. "An omen," she said, and the sheer flatness of her voice gave Asa chills. She turned blind blue eyes toward Asa, the sight sufficient to make most people uncomfortable, but something Asa was quite used to. "I... I don't think it will happen soon... not in our lifetimes." She stared off into nothingness again. "But it is coming. It is coming."

"Lydia?" Asa asked tentatively after a moment. Lydia tilted her head a fraction to one side. "What power did the Orb have?"

"I..." She hesitated. When her mouth opened again, it was not her voice that spoke. _"Sight across worlds, Asa. The last remnant of the Great Tree provides the only means of communication and vision across worlds."_

"Provides -" Asa's hand flew to her mouth. "It still exists?"

 _Yes,_ Branna agreed, and Asa traced a quick circle on the back of Lydia's hand to let her know Branna was speaking, to be silent. _The Orb is something that... many have searched for over the generations._

"Many have searched for," Asa repeated, mostly for Lydia-Isen's benefit. "You mean the hosts."

Lydia-Isen nodded. _"We search... we search in hopes of speaking to our Mother one more time,"_ Isen said quietly. She went silent, and once more it was Lydia's voice. "Even after the Banishment..."

"They still want to see Her again," Asa finished. Lydia nodded miserably, and Asa pulled her older Sister into a hug, the two rocking each other back and forth. Their other two Sisters found them there in the morning, asleep in each other's arms, the scroll telling the story of Death's pain unrolled across the table. It would not be read again for many, many years, until a little girl named Sophie, with eyes the color of flame, found it in her library and brought it curiously to her mother and aunt to have it read to her. Though she was too young to read all of the scrawled text herself, when it came to the end of the story she curled up and mumbled quiet protests... _before_ her mother paused in horror upon seeing the words describing the prince's death. Before Sophie could possibly have read it.

It was Isen-Elsa who gently took the scroll from Anna's hands and finished the story. Though little Sophie was distressed, it was in a distracted, distant way, as though she had heard it a million times before, though that wasn't at all possible. And her family knew that her memories were beginning to return.

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 **Reviews, please! Reviews will be passed on to wolfchic if relevant, especially if a request is made to do so. ;3 Thanks for reading, and I'll see y'all next time!**


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